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Five days dragged past, then six, then seven, and still no sign of Allan cauish of the wo now she would watch for hi of her child mercifully distracted her attention a little while fro her
She would stand for hours on the rock terrace, peering into the northwest; she would climb the steep path a dozen times a day, and in distraction pace the cliff-top inside the palisaded area, where now sooats were penned in process of do in vain his na winds of heaven With the telescope she would untiringly sweep the far reaches of the horizon, hoping, ever hoping, that at eachits say southeastward, resolve itself into that one and only blessed sight her whole soul craved and burned for--the Pauillac and her husband!
And so, till night fell, and her strained eyes could no longer distinguish anything but swiht a prayer, her every hope a torment--for each hope was destined only to end in disappoint dark had robbed her of all possibility for further watching she would descend with slow and halting steps, grief-broken, dazed, half-maddened, to the home-cavern--empty now, in spite of her child's presence there--eht vigil Daylight gave so of pain in the very searching of the sky, the strong, deterainst what had now becoht! Nothing, then, but to sit and think, and think, and think, to madness! Sleep was impossible At most, exhausted nature snatched only a few brief spells of se there sunk in his deep and healthy slumber, only kindled fresh fires of woe For he was Allan's child--he spoke to her by his mere presence of the absent, the lost, perhaps the dead ht be already ed and her boy fatherless, she would pace the rock-floor in terrible, writhen crises of agony, hands clenched till the nails pierced the delicate flesh, eyes staring, face waxen, only for the sake of the child suppressing the sobs and heart-torn cries that sought to burst from her overburdened soul
"Oh, Allan! Allan!" she would entreat, as though he could know and hear "Oh, come back to me! What has happened? Where are you? Come back, come back to your boy--to me!"